Masked
by Elena Tod
Summary: When Darren almost drowns in the river after running away, he wasn't saved by the wolves. Instead he is offered a new life,still staying close to vampires It's a secret life and he has to give up his friends but with new ones by his side, he manages to stop Kurda's plan, but will destiny catch up to him? How will Mr. Crepsley deal with Darren's 'death?
1. Chapter 1

SUMMARY: Darren wasn't saved by the wolves after almost drowning in the river. Instead, he woke up in a cave with a young girl. When she offers him a new way of life while still being close to vampires, he can't refuse.

A/N: I know I should be focusing on my other stories, but this idea was SO good! This will probably be quick, so enjoy!

I was shivering, wet and lost. I couldn't even feel my legs working beneath me. The icy waters of the river combined with the constant crashing into rocks made my whole body feel numb. I remember some survival skills Mr. Crepsley had taught me about freezing when wet.  
"If ever you are wet in a snowy place, take off your clothes. The wet fabric will stick to your body and cause you to freeze to death much faster."  
I did so and saw that it did make a difference. I also tried jogging part of the way to get my blood flowing. It hurt, but I could feel the difference it made. I couldn't wander long. If I could only find a forest, I thought, then I could find some shelter from the cold wind and make a fire. But the jogging used up the last of my energy and after only a few minutes, I couldn't stop my knees from buckling beneath me and I fell hard into the icy, unforgiving snow face first. I turned my head to the side so I could breath and lost consciousness almost immediately.  
- I don't know how long I was out for, but I regained consciousness slowly and painfully. It took a while for me to be able to get my eyes open, but when I finally did, I was surprised not to find the white snow beneath me, and I also was no longer on my stomach. I have been flipped over. I was looking up at the roof of a cave.  
I wanted to sit up and take a look around-and look for my rescuer- but I was still weak and could barely even lift my arm. But I did feel rough wool covering me from my chest down. I was under a blanket! I was going to live!  
My joy stopped when I remembered that I was in the hands of a total stranger with no way to defend myself. But I didn't see anyone around. This might've been one of the rest stations on the path to vampire mountain. A vampire could have found me and brought me here.  
As quickly as that idea came to me, I deserted it. The vampires wanted me dead. Not only did I fail my trials, but I ran away from my punishment. No vampire would even consider saving me, and eve if they did, as soon as they realized who I was, they would have killed me.  
Unless...  
I felt shivers run up my spine, but these weren't from the cold. Panic and horror took over my body and I finished my thought: unless they were taking me back to Vampire Mountain to face the consequences of my actions. I would have to face everyone and die, probably, slowly and disgracefully. I quick death while I was unconscious wouldn't be fair. The panic gave me a burst of energy and I bolt upright, but had to lay right back down again as my head started to spin. I truly was helpless in the state I was. I had to wait in suspenseful silence until someone returned. Suddenly, I was surprised as a question popped into my head.  
Where were my clothes? This was followed by, Why am I thinking of this now?  
From there my mind wandered on it's own. This helped my worry go away a little. I thought of Mr. Crepsley a lot.  
I'm sorry," I whispered, "I failed you." Hot tears dripped off my icey face and onto the ground. After a few minutes, I got myself together after few minutes. I wasn't about to cry. It was too late for that.  
My thoughts were int erupted when someone walked in. I saw a young girl with  
"Damn," the person spoke, "I wanted to be here when you woke up."  
All I could do was stare at her.  
She sat down on a stone next to me and looked at me, eyebrows raised. "Hello? Can you understand me? Do we have a bit of a language barrier here?"  
I snapped out of my trance. "Sorry, I wasn't expecting..."  
"A girl?" she guessed. She didn't look offended, but instead amused. "Anyway, yeah, I saw you in the snow and decided to bring you here. You're not very heavy. That was a bit surprising..."  
She continued talking and I couldn't help but notice how pretty she was. She wasn't pretty like Arra Sails, she hardly had a scar on her, and her face was barely worn from the weather. She was literally PRETTY. Her long brown hair was braided and went down to her waist. She never broke eye contact as she talked, and I was able to see her large brown eyes. They were kind, but there was a hidden pain behind them. She was very fair skinned and slim, but tone. I saw the outline of muscles under her clothes.  
She was in all black, but only one layer. It looked like a leotard with long sleeves and pants. It went up her neck and stopped below her chin. Everything was skin tight, but her figure made it flattering. Her shoes were close toes with Velcro instead of laces- also black.  
"When I saw you come out of the river, I wasn't going to bother. Then I saw that you took your clothes off,"she continued.  
I started listening again and raised my eyebrows.  
She sighed, "That is not what I mean. What I mean is that I thought you were insane, a rogue, or something like that, but when you took your clothes off and jogged, it showed KNOWLEDGE. You still had your mind. You weren't insane, you just needed help."  
I smiled, "You totally checked me out." I laughed as she gasped and broke into laughter herself. She lightly punched my arm.  
"Yeah, OKAY," she said, still laughing. "Don't be cocky!"  
We started joking, as if we had known each other for years. The conversations flowed naturally. She asked me so many questions about what had happened to me at Vampire Mountain, and I told her. It's not like it was a secret. I failed my trials and ran away. I cried when I got to the part about Gavner. The girl didn't offer any form of support or concern, but she stayed silent until it passed and I quickly finished my tale. At the end, I took a deep breath.  
"So what about you?" I finally asked.  
"Excuse me?" she replied. Her eyebrows creased together as she spoke.  
"Where do you come from?" I inquired, "And how did you end up here?"  
She bit her lip and for the first time in our conversation, she broke eye contact to stare at the floor. "Oh, you don't want to know THAT." She mumbled, and I had to strain to hear her.  
"Come on," I encouraged, "I told you mine. It's a fair trade."  
She sighed, "I can't tell you yet."  
I nodded, respecting her privacy. I didn't acknowledge the 'yet' in her statement, but I had to know one thing. "Can I at least know your name?"  
She smiled. "Now I can't tell you that either."  
"Why not?" I was beginning to get a creepy feeling from her. I started to fidget with the edge of the blanket.  
"Look," she said, "I have a secret to keep here. Nobody knows about me. I want to keep it that way. I ran away from that life, but I still care about them. I help them...from a distance. I'm breaking a few of my rules by even helping you and telling you all this."  
"How do you help them without them even knowing about you?" I asked, genuinely curious.  
She bit her lip and just stared at me for a while. Finally, she opened her mouth and spoke, "I travel around the world, doing various things in secret that will help the vampires. I tend to mainly eaves drop on Vampaneze meetings and stop some of their plans. The reason a war hasn't started yet, is because I have stopped all of their advances. When they form a plan, I stop it. I have a few friends I have linked with telepathically around the world that want to do the same thing. We all keep in touch with each other."  
Whoa, I thought, It's like a secret society that vampires don't even know about! That's incredible!  
She continued, "That's why I'm out here. I heard from a friend that a group of Vampaneze were going to hide in the Mountain."  
"That's true!" I exclaimed, "Kurda brought them."  
"Who?" she asked, "Is he the vampire who is soon to be a prince?"  
I answered, "Yeah, he plans on killing the other princes once he is one and then take over to steal the Stone of Blood!"  
"I know," she said, "I snuck into the Mountain's hidden tunnels and listened in on one of their conversations. All my friends are coming and we are going to stop them."  
"A secret fight IN the Mountain?" I recapped, "Ballsie!"  
She chuckled, but there wasn't humor in it, "We WOULD, but that day is quickly approaching and I'm afraid my friends won't get here in time. I can't do this alone."  
"Well, I want them stopped too," I spat. "Gavner was my friend, and his death will NOT be meaningless."  
She looked as if she just got an idea. "If my friends don't come...will you be willing to come with me?"  
I looked up at her. "What good will I do when I'm like this?" I gestured to my body. I don't think I could even walk yet.  
"You still have some time left to recover," she informed me. I am going to make another trip there before we put the plan into action. I'd say you have about a week."  
I nodded, "And what exactly is the plan?"  
If they come on time, we will battle them. Started during the day so we could get some of them in their sleep, then using the sun outside against them so they can't leave."  
"And if the don't?"  
"Then we think of something else. So, are you in?"  
I smiled and nodded. "But, you know, I am going to need to know your name for that."  
The corners of her lips rose in a long, all-lip smile. "Achen," she said.  
"Darren," I returned, and shook her hand.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been three days and Achen heard no word from her friends. I had gotten in much better shape than when I first escaped the river. Pain racked my body as I recovered. Bruises covered me like purple leeches. My cuts weren't too serious-the cold restricted the flow of blood-but they stung like crazy. The more I thought of my fall through the stream, the more incredible it seemed. Had it not been for the pain, I would have thought it was some sort of crazy dream.

More incredible still was that I hadn't broken any major bones. Three fingers on my left hand were broken, my right thumb was sticking out at an alarming angle, and my left ankle had swollen up like a balloon, but otherwise I seemed to be okay. I could move my arms and legs, my skull hadn't been cracked open, my spine hadn't snapped in two. All things considered, I was in astonishingly good shape. I had even taken to taking short walks around the outside of the cave. My clothes were in no way wearable, so Achen had snuck into the mountain to find some spare clothes for me to wear. She didn't tell me she was going, otherwise I would have told her not to bother. After everything that had happened, modesty was the least of my concerns. But now I wore a loose tunic and pants, both brown.

During one of my walks, Achen came with me. We didn't say anything for a while, until she finally broke the silence. "I haven't heard from any of my friends." Her voice was level without a hint of emotion in it. She did that when she got serious.

Achen was a full vampire. I hadn't learned much about her life except that she was a vampire and she ran away. Now she found ways to help vampires any way she could. I assumed that her friends were vampires as well, and that they connect with each other through telepathy only full vampires are capable of.

"What does that mean?" I asked, already pretty sure about the answer.

"I should have heard word from someone by now. I have to assume that no one is coming," Achen returned. "But that's fine. Now we have to put our second plan into action. Do you remember what we came up with?"  
"Of course, "I said. We had already talked through a backup plan in case something like this happens and we are left alone. It took hours of discussion and debate but we finally agreed on something. We figured that we did not necessarily have to fight and kill the vampaneze in order to stop the attack. We just needed to chase them off. We agreed that it wasn't the most honorable way, but with only the two of us, we stood no chance battling over thirty vampaneze. "I will be going into the Mountain and trap them inside their cave with a rock slide from the inside. While I do that, you will cause an avalanche on the outside, leaving them completely isolated."

Achen nodded. "Good. If they even manage to get out, it will be too late and Kurda will already be invested. The vampire prince will have failed his plan. As soon as you set off your mudslide, get out of the tunnel quickly. The vampires will hear and feel the commotion and likely come down immediately to check it out. Got it?"

I was about to reply when, suddenly, Achen stopped, mid-step. I turned and stared at her. "What is it?" I asked.

"Shh…" Achen silenced me, listening intently to a sound I couldn't hear. All of a sudden, she grabbed my arm and dragged me into nearby bush. I let her, trusting her more highly developed senses. We stayed crouched in silence until I heard the sound of distant footsteps. Our eyes were both locked on the mound. A minute passed. Two. Then a figure appeared over the mound. Although my senses weren't as sharp as Achen's, I knew immediately who the figure was-_Mr. Crepsley!_

_A/N: I think this is better than my original second chapter. Sorry it took so long. I had to quit for a while. It got very addicting and started taking over my life, but I'm back now. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!_


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